Editor 109

The Tristain Knight Order (2)

The Tristain duke’s manor was a fortress built atop a mountain cliff. The base and walls of the castle were carved directly out of solid rock. Turrets stood at each corner of the walls, and above them rose spires and watchtowers. Among them, the main keep’s tower, towering as if looking down from above, was particularly imposing.

‘Truly, a natural fortress. They say it held off a horde of monsters a thousand years ago… It’s no wonder such legends exist. To build at that height with medieval technology, they must have used magic, right?’

From the winding single road below, all one could see was a sheer rock face, but after crossing the drawbridge over the moat at the back of the castle, adjacent to the mountains, and ascending the ramp, a different scene unfolded.

Within the outer walls, buildings connected in a square formation surrounded a wide courtyard bustling with people.

Contrary to its grand legend, the mountain stronghold had a cheerful atmosphere. The approach to the main keep was paved with expensive stones, and even the thousand-year-old buildings were well maintained.

Only the main keep felt somber; the other buildings forming the square seemed to have been added later, with smooth glass windows letting in plenty of light.

Not only the knights with their manablade swords, but even the squires and servants seemed lively. Their clothes were clean and their health looked good.

It’s said that when the lord owns all the land in the territory, the lives of the locals depend entirely on the lord’s governance.

‘The climate is harsh, but there’s a source of wealth. The Tristain ducal house must be good at ruling.’

As soon as the carriage stopped, Mietz vanished into the castle with the mercenaries, guided by soldiers.

The carriage owner, after dropping off the children, rolled up his sleeves to help the townspeople organize the cargo.

Arthur and Isiel tried to help as well, but the burly coachman shooed them away, saying they’d only get hurt.

The two boys and four girls stood awkwardly at the edge of the courtyard, each holding their own bag.

Chel, plopping comfortably onto a luxurious leather suitcase she’d tossed down, asked,

“So, what are we supposed to do now?”

Isiel, the leader of this practicum group, took out the documents from her bag and scanned the area, but she couldn’t spot the person they were looking for.

“Our practicum supervisor should be coming out… I called the castle ahead of time, but I don’t see them.”

“Who’s the supervisor?”

“I heard it’s the vice-captain of the Tristain knight order. The duke is bedridden, and the young lord is in the capital serving the crown prince.”

“So where can we find this person?”

Chel tried to grab someone and ask, but everyone was too busy hauling massive amounts of food and supplies to be interrupted.

Once the cargo was mostly sorted, a burly middle-aged man in a knight’s uniform strode up from the main gate.

Behind him followed a tall knight with a mane of hair like a lion, and a small knight carrying a bow.

The middle-aged man, his face marked with a large scar, had piercing eyes and broad shoulders. Muscles bulged under his uniform, straining the fabric as he carried a huge broadsword slung over his shoulder. It was as if a mountain were moving.

“Sir Rotan!”

“It’s been a while. I thought you’d be out hunting monsters, not here.”

“I had to return because of some busywork from above. Those southerners act like their problems are urgent and never consider ours.”

“You work so hard. As if wild animals weren’t enough, now monsters are running amok.”

“We’re killing every one of them we see, but everyone should still be careful for a while. Thank you all for hauling all these supplies up here! If you go to the dining hall, lunch is ready, so eat up and gather before heading back down. Trude, Raisa! On your way back, go with the villagers and head straight to the defensive line.”

“Understood, Vice-captain!”

“Yes, sir!”

“Thank you!”

“Thank you so much.”

The man called Rotan was warmly welcomed by the locals, who were a head shorter than him.

‘So that’s Rotan Tepito.’

He was Sir Rotan, vice-captain of the Tristain knight order and a level 6 knight.

As soon as he spotted Arthur’s group and heard Isiel’s greeting, he blurted out,

“Good grief, this is ridiculous. Kids, girls, and—what’s this, someone who looks like a weakling who’d blow away in the wind. In this emergency, they want me to babysit children? Are the southerners out of their minds?!”

Arthur and Chel whistled, and the twins ignored Rotan’s comment.

Isiel, unfazed, held out the documents and repeated her introduction without moving an eyebrow.

“I am Isiel Kishion, first-year at the Royal Capital Defense Academy and leader of this practicum group. Please accept these documents from Dean Zebedi. We look forward to working with you.”

“Agh! This—!”

The hot-tempered man clenched his fist in frustration, then snatched the envelope from Isiel’s calm hand.

Inside were the children’s names, personal information, and recommendation letters, but he didn’t even open it.

That big man had lost the battle of wills to Isiel. Clayeo turned his head away, hiding a smile.

‘Of course rough northern men wouldn’t be happy to welcome pale-faced kids from the capital. Still, someone who shows their anger openly is easier to deal with than someone who ignores you in a shady way.’

He wanted to find a moment to tell them how to deal with the monster Python, but it looked like that would be difficult for a while.

Clayeo wasn’t the type to forcefully persuade someone who didn’t want to listen.

In any region, prophets predicting dire futures are always persecuted. Why ask for trouble?

‘That’s just my luck, I suppose.’

With heavy footsteps, Rotan led the children to the top floor of a three-story building at the back.

Their assigned rooms were cramped, right under the roof.

“Boys on the left, girls on the right. The bathroom and toilet are on the ground floor. You’ll have to clean and make your own beds. Don’t expect the servants to help, or you’ll get no credit for your practicum!”

“Sure, no problem!”

Arthur grinned even in front of Rotan.

“I don’t have much luggage, so I’m free to help right now! What should I do? Everyone else looks busy!”

“What’s your name?”

“Arthur!”

Standing with his hands on his hips, Rotan scanned Arthur with a fierce look.

Messy hair, a dirty chin from a rushed hangover shave, wearing a shabby fur coat—no one would see him as a prince, a level 5 knight, or someone who decides the fate of the world.

“Hmph, I bet you strutted around at that academy thinking you were something with a sword. Up here in the north, a kid like you has no reason to draw a blade, so don’t get cocky. Just fill in the holes on the training ground and that’ll be enough.”

Clayeo’s gaze drifted to the window. Using [Insight], he looked past the lined-up carriages over the paving stones and saw the state of the training ground.

Maybe there hadn’t been time to clean up after training; there were holes everywhere, the sand churned up and frozen with the snow.

It looked like it would take a lot of work to fill it all in.

‘I expected to be treated coldly, but for these sword prodigies to come all the way here just to shovel dirt…’

If only Taetherton Tristain were here, they’d be getting a better reception, but Rotan didn’t look like someone you could reason with.

‘If only the kids were twenty, they wouldn’t be underestimated like this, but since the manuscript sped up, look at this mess. Sigh.’

Honestly, Clayeo found himself empathizing more with Rotan than the kids.

A border knight of common birth. The higher-ups are absent, the responsibility is heavy. If something goes wrong in this emergency, not just he but all the locals could be in danger.

They send middle and high schoolers as interns to a place where people’s lives are on the line. And since they’re rich kids, if anything happens it’ll be a disaster.

Just thinking about it, the job sounded like a recipe for high blood pressure. In such circumstances, who cares if the kids are geniuses or prodigies.

‘He grumbles a bit much, but he’s a reasonable guy.’

Of course, he’d end up being grateful to them later.

This was a land especially plagued by monsters.

If the monsters awakening in Tristain’s territory could be stopped by forty knights and a few hundred soldiers, they wouldn’t have hired mercenaries too.

.

.

.

Thud, thud.

Isiel and Arthur were good at shoveling.

The weather was freezing, and the repeated freezing and thawing of the snow had turned the training ground’s soil hard as stone, but the two of them eased their labor by channeling Aether into their shovels.

Their posture was so precise, it looked like master craftsmen who’d been digging all their lives. When Clayeo watched in amazement, Arthur boasted proudly.

“Growing up in a territory with heavy snowfalls and frequent landslides, I could dig with my eyes closed.”

“Arthur, please be careful or you’ll get hurt. Watch where you’re digging.”

Since they were channeling Aether through the shovels, a single misstep could chop off a toe.

Even the mature and calm Isiel seemed used to wrapping Aether around her shovel, which left Clayeo truly flustered.

The twins and Chel said it was their first time holding a shovel, but since it was physical work, they quickly leveled the soil in their assigned sections like true knight trainees.

Of course, Clayeo didn’t shovel at all.

He certainly could, but he didn’t say so.

When Chel brought shovels from the shed, she only brought five. The kids seemed to have silently agreed not to let Clayeo handle a shovel.

“If you hurt your back or get blisters or faint, what do we do? Ray, you just stay healthy so you can heal us if anything happens.”

That was their reasoning.

With the energetic kids working hard, why bother stepping in?

Clayeo, wrapped up in sheepskin gloves, warm boots, and a cape coat that was warm but ill-suited for manual labor, sat quietly on a bench by the dorm entrance.

He wasn’t just waiting—he explained about the monster Python, which could appear at any moment.

“Before we came up here, I stayed up all night drinking with Teacher Mietz. He said there’s a legend that a thousand years ago, they failed to kill a monster called Python in this territory.”

“Really, Clayeo?”

“Really. I wasn’t drunk and misheard.”

Crunch.

Arthur, driving his shovel into the hard, frozen ground, clicked his tongue.

“Ha, that man. I knew it. He didn’t just come for the money!”

“So the teacher had a plan for coming here after all.”

Chel shrugged.

“If your teacher thought some huge monster might appear, he could’ve given us a hint instead of joining the patrol all by himself, right?”

“He was probably worried you’d run into the mountains to hunt the monster if he told you, Arthur.”

“Well, feeling the teacher’s care, we’re stuck shoveling in this safe fortress.”

Clayeo shook his head.

“Sorry, but Teacher Mietz’s good intentions might not turn out so well. I read about that monster somewhere—it’s a huge black serpent with wings. It flies in the sky.”

The five kids looked up at the sky with their shovels. Not a single bird flew in the gray, clouded sky.

“This fortress is probably impregnable to anything attacking from the ground, but if something comes from the sky, it’s useless, huh?”

“That’s right. So listen carefully. The monster’s weak spot is its heart on the right side of its chest. Its scales can’t be pierced with an ordinary blade, but if you channel Aether into your sword and stab between the scales, then…”

Clayeo, eyes a bit glazed from flipping through the “Scroll of Memory,” explained what the manuscript said about the monster Python.

It was just the face he made while reading the scroll, but the kids thought: At times like this, Clayeo seemed like an untouchable prophet, speaking his visions.

It was a misperception Clayeo would’ve vehemently denied if he’d known, but what could he do? Even without putting it into words, the kids who’d known each other so long shared similar feelings.

After Clayeo finished speaking, he found himself bewildered by the strangely solemn mood among the kids, who had stopped shoveling.

“Did you all hear me properly? Should I explain it again?”

A beat later, Liffie and Leticia answered.

“No, we got it. Python screams like crazy, so you can’t miss it when it comes close.”

“You can’t get a blade through the scales, so you have to work in pairs to catch it.”

“Right, so why the blank faces after listening so well?”

“It’s just—we were wondering what kind of book has such detailed info about monsters.”

What book? In truth, it’s not even a book, it’s the manuscript of .

Of course, Liffie wasn’t doubting or challenging him, but Clayeo still felt a twinge of guilt, like a thief caught out.